Have you ever dreamed of having a paper-thin transparent screen microphone? Well, it may not be that far away. Recently researchers from Changzhou, Jiangsu Province, unveiled their breakthrough progress on graphene-screen microphones at a new material seminar held in Nanjing on March 25.

They have produced super-thin graphene microphone screen at relatively low costs. However, there is still some way to go before mass production, according to their announcement.

Graphene was first produced and isolated in the lab in limited ways in 2003. In 2010 two professors from the University of Manchester in Britain won the Nobel Prize for physics due to their "groundbreaking experiments with this two-dimensional material". It is tough, euphotic, and is the lightest solid matter with exceptional conductivity at room temperature.

Although it is often regarded by the science circle as a "thin mighty material that might hold much promise", at present there is little hope for its commercial application in near future for the sole reason of skyrocketing price of graphene, which is 15 times that of gold. That is why Changzhou researchers’ progress bears great importance.

China has considerable advantage in graphene research with a rich collection of graphite resources, the raw material of graphene. Changzhou made its first substantial attempt in graphene-related innovation on May 18, 2013, concerning transparent films and got the nation’s first graphene industrial base in March 13, 2015, which will facilitate its research and production in the field in the future.